Pull-based marketing is the embodiment of a technology-infused world, in which empowered consumers reward marketers for relevance. Search makes it possible.

The Internet’s leading best practices are really designed to fall into three buckets. First of all there are the best practices that I refer to as the Integrated Best Practices: These are the tactics, tools and approaches that squarely demonstrate the Web’s role and value in an integrated media mix. A good example here would be cost efficient incremental reach and frequency.

Next there are the Interactive best practices which focus on exemplifying and espousing the various attributes and benefits of the Web that are unique to the Web. Some examples here might be involving experiences or targeting via immediacy.

Finally there are the Executional best practices, which are designed pretty much to help us do our jobs more efficiently and effectively. Use of color, for example, or optimal placement of tandem units help us to maximize the opportunities at our fingertips.

Then comes pull-based marketing, which falls -- in many respects -- into all three categories. In short, pull-based marketing is the embodiment of a technology-infused world, in which empowered consumers reward marketers for relevance. In this world, consumers are super-efficient at searching, sorting, sifting and selecting desirable content and information based on their immediate needs and specific objectives.

Pull-based marketing could easily be interchanged with the word, Search, although this act would considerably shortchange the full potential of this innovative marketing approach and Web-based sweet spot. This being said, I’ll spend most of the time talking about search as the premier tool with which to put this practice into practice.

You’re all probably familiar with the well-known cliché (which I suppose is tautology): If you can't take Mohammed to the mountain, take the mountain to Mohammed. According to clichesite.com, this U.S.-originated cliché is explained as follows: If someone won't understand what you want them to understand by seeing something you want them to see, bring what you want them to see to them. That sounds a lot like search to me.

In short, the immovable mountain (let’s say Big Apple Sports on CBSNews at 11:26 pm) has been transformed into a mobile magic carpet (ESPN Motion or WAP data services), which orbits the celestial constellation known as Mohammed, but more affectionately referred to as the consumer.

Here’s what Kevin Lee, CEO of Did-It.com had to say about pull-based marketing: “For me, pull-based marketing boils down to one concept: matching the marketing message so closely to the needs of the audience that they do not see the marketing message as intrusive. Many sites are starting to move to value content driven Web pages as a way to provide a non-intrusive marketing environment. CPGs create recipe sites or sites about stain removal; tech marketers develop white papers; travel sites license great content or write it themselves."

“Of course one of the ways people find this type of content is search, both organic and paid search.”

Search is one of the few categories on the Web that has shown consistent, exponential growth in these recent times. It shouldn’t come as a surprise why this is the case. Search is the quintessential pull-based marketing tool and in being so, rewards both consumers’ interest and marketers’ investments through relevant, efficient messaging.

I don’t profess to be an expert when it comes to search. I leave that in the hands of gurus like Kevin Lee. I do know one thing for sure: Search is one of the most underutilized best practices on the Internet. Lee concurs: “Advertisers are not spending enough money on search, and have not recognized the power in matching their marketing message to the mind set of a searcher.”

Part of the reason for this stems from the fact that search has to compete with an already anemic working media budget. In reality, search should come out of an entirely different budget – possibly from a robust Web-dev budget, or perhaps even from a much larger pool.

“Search provides the marketer with an opportunity to acquire a customer before they have had an opportunity to develop an alternative brand preference,” explains Lee. “It tends to catch the audience at latter portions of the buying cycle but is useful for all portions of the buying cycle.”

GM O’Connell, chairman of Modem Media, often uses the example of a consumer typing in “power tools” and being rewarded with listings from brands like Makita and Black & Decker. In this case, it is clear how search plays matchmaker by rewarding brand equity and relevance with consumer action.

In GM’s example, there is the explicit assumption that a finite consideration set already exists; however this is not always necessarily going to be the case. In some cases where relevance wins out over presence, pull-based marketing plays a part in leveling the playing fields too.

Then there’s the branding impact associated with search and more specifically post-click branding impact. According to Lee, “A major CPG company did a study on a very similar topic but is unable to share the results publicly; the results of the study were quite illuminating.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard these murmurs and I think this kind of thinking is exactly what is required to help transform the perceptions of search as a direct-response tactic to a more prominent branding strategy.

Another perspective of search involves the application of contextual relevancy to search queries. “Some engines have started mixing in large quantities of contextual inventory in their search listings,” says Lee. I always thought this took the form of an advertiser like Claritin buying keywords such as “Spring” or “Kleenex”, as opposed to the more obvious “Hayfever” or “allergies”, but it goes a lot deeper than that.

Here’s an example of search in action:

Campaign objectives were to drive qualified traffic through Careerbuilder.com’s suite of services using highly targeted keywords and relevant messaging.

To achieve this objective Careerbuilder used paid placement to position a unique and specific advertising offer in response to a user query. For example, a search on “career options” yields a paid placement (noted as a featured sponsor) titled “Find the Perfect Job”. The supporting text further describes the extensive resources available to the user at Careerbuilder.com.

In this case, click-through averages for Careerbuilder.com Premier Listings on Ask Jeeves demonstrated user receptivity to their pull-through requests:

All 554 Premier Listings averaged a 2.70% CTR
The top 50 Premier Listings averaged an 8.24% CTR
The top 100 Premier Listings averaged a 7.47% CTR
The top 250 Premier Listings averaged a 4.36% CTR.

I heard the phrase a couple of years ago that consumers were becoming searchers, not surfers. The latter implies random wandering, while the former alludes to direct and focused activities.

To be sure, this shift in consumer behavior couldn’t be more antithetical to the traditional way of communicating marketing messaging. The scenario of marketers pushing and consumers pulling sounds harmonious enough – the only problem is that these two actions are currently going on in entirely the opposite direction.

For now, search is our best means of meeting the consumer halfway in order to help not only influence their fate, but ultimately ours too.